We were old, young, black, white, male, female, but one thing we all shared:
we looked a bit sheepish

I’m really not that bad a driver. I passed first time and, after years of being reminded about it by my wife, I now even use my indicators on a regular basis. But this is not to say I am a good driver. I can’t be, otherwise I wouldn’t have found myself sitting in a Holiday Inn in Guildford for four hours on Thursday evening on a speed awareness course (it was either that or three more points).

My problem is that my mind wanders. Indeed, I find cars one of the best places to think — about plots, articles, dilemmas — because you can’t take your hands off the steering wheel to make notes, and this forces you to work through ideas in a more thorough way. Afterwards, when I get in front of the keyboard, it’s like pressing a download button.

Those of us who find it hard to concentrate when driving were given strategies. One was to say out loud all the things we pass: “Old lady, postbox, dog, traffic light…” I suppose other drivers will assume you are either talking into a hands-free phone, or are mad.

Some 26 of us had foregathered, and although we were old, young, black, white, male and female, we all had one thing in common. We looked a bit sheepish. It was what I imagine attending an AA meeting must be like.

We were told that anything we said would be in confidence, and that if we were to bump into fellow attendees in the supermarket we weren’t to acknowledge them, in case they were with their families who didn’t know of our shared shame. When the instructor asked if any of us had told anyone we were coming, I raised my hand. “And what was the reaction?” he asked. “Amusement,” I said. I don’t think it was the right answer.

There was more audience participation than I’d imagined, and fewer crash videos. And as I was listening it occurred to me that I ought not to be flippant about this, in case I find myself up before the beak some time in the future and the prosecution digs out this column and uses it in evidence against me.

That said, there was one funny moment when the instructor asked what it means when we see a blue sign. “You’re on a motorway,” someone shouted. “That’s right, and what if you see a grey sign?” I knew this one. “You’re on a motorway going the wrong way.” When he asked how I knew, everyone laughed. “It happens more often than you’d think,” he added, “because of sat nav.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that sat nav hadn’t been invented the first time I did it. Or indeed the second time, when I came out of KwikFit on to a dual carriageway and somehow crossed one set of lanes too many. You would have done the same. It was very confusing.

The first time was after a Bob Dylan concert in Newcastle. I came out of a service station and got on to a slip road. When I reached the top and realised it was taking me in the wrong direction, I did a U-turn. Two police cars were waiting for me at the bottom, having seen my headlights. My statement was read out in court in its entirety: “Sorry.”

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I turn to the case of Gandhi’s sexuality in a spirit of tolerance. He probably wasn’t gay as some now suggest, but even if he was, so what? What is wrong with society that we obsess so about the sexuality of others? If you have an idle moment, try this experiment. Type the word “is” into your search engine and follow it by the name of a male celebrity. One of the search suggestions it will offer you will probably be “gay”.

Actually, I just tried “is David Cameron…” and the first suggestion was “Tory”, which demonstrates that we are either extremely ignorant as a nation, or extremely mischievous.

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Is it too early to attach a “gate” to the story about the Spanish businessman who claimed to have married Gina Lollobrigida by proxy? Ginagate? Lollobrigidagate? Either way, here’s my contribution. I interviewed her the year before this fake marriage took place and asked if it was true she planned to marry him. “Yes,” she said. “I changed my mind though. That is what women do.”